Don Waisanen is an Adjunct Professor of Public Service of NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He is also a Professor in the Baruch College, CUNY Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, where he received the Presidential Awards for Distinguished Teaching and Distinguished Scholarship. He teaches courses and workshops in public communication—including executive speech training, communication strategy, and seminars on storytelling, conflict and negotiation, and leadership and improvisation.
All of Waisanen’s research seeks to understand how communication works to promote or hinder the force of citizens’ voices. Since “every human advancement or reversal can be understood through communication” (Walter Annenberg), he has written close to 50 scholarly publications on the subject, covering topics from strategies in public speaking to the ways that organizations and governments can better communicate with different stakeholders. He is the author of five books, including the forthcoming States of Confusion: How New Voter ID Requirements Fail Democracy and What To Do About It (with Sonia Jarvis and Nicole Gordon, under contract with New York University Press), Improv for Democracy: How to Bridge Differences and Develop the Communication and Leadership Skills Our World Needs (State University of New York Press, New Political Science series), and Real Money, Real Power? The Challenges with Participatory Budgeting in New York City (with Daniel Williams; Palgrave-Macmillan).
Previously, Waisanen worked in broadcast journalism, as a speechwriter, and continues to develop and run communication campaigns for organizations across the private and public sectors. He is the founder of Communication Upward and an adjunct lecturer at Columbia University and New York University. For the last two decades, he's also been an improvisational performer at theaters in Los Angeles and New York.